The Myth of Original Intentionality

Abstract

According to Searle, the brains are capable of causing mental phenomena with intentional or semantic content. Sometimes Searle calls the effect wrought by these causal powers original intentionality and sometimes he calls it intrinsic intentionality. This chapter discusses how strange, how ultimately preposterous, Searle's imagined causal powers of the brain are, and it explores the myth of original intentionality. The chapter discusses the first task by presenting a comparison of Searle's claim about the causal powers of the brain and a similar and much more defensible claim. According to Searle, however, only the mental phenomena exhibit original intentionality. The intentionality of an encyclopedia or a road sign or a photograph of the Eiffel Tower is only derived or secondary intentionality. This is certainly an intuitive and appealing first move toward a general theory of intentionality. A sentence considered by itself as a string of ink marks or a sequence of acoustic vibrations has no intrinsic meaning or aboutness. It has a structure, or syntax, but in so far as it acquires meaning or semantics, this is an endowment from its users.